Ostentatious

 WORD OF THE DAY

ostentatious / adjective / ah-stun-TAY-shus

Definition
1: attracting or seeking to attract attention, admiration, or envy often by gaudiness or obviousness : overly elaborate or conspicuous
2: characterized by, fond of, or evincing ostentation

Examples
"The Met Gala, in full ostentatious, crowd-pleasing costumery, returned this week, flooding the fashion news cycle."
 — Vanessa Friedman, New York Times, 11 May 2022

That pompous excuse for a plush ride is a thumb in the eye to every taxpayer—and in the case of an ostentatious cost-cutter, genuine hypocrisy.
— William Safire, New York Times, 2 May 1991

Did You Know?
Showy, pretentious, and ostentatious all mean "given to outward display," but there are subtle differences in their meanings.
Showy implies an imposing or striking appearance, but usually also implies cheapness or bad taste. Pretentious suggests an appearance of importance not justified by a thing's value or a person's standing.
Ostentatious is the biggest show-off, stressing the vanity of the display. English speakers derived ostentatious from the noun ostentation, which can be traced back, via Middle French, to the Latin verb ostentare (meaning "to display"), a frequentative form of the verb ostendere, meaning "to show."